Friday, May 18, 2007

Bike Problems

This last Saturday--Yes, I know it was a bit ago!--I had a few bike problems. It went something like this...

My plan was to take a bit of the fish tank water down to the fish store to have it tested to see if we can begin stocking our little tank with some pretty fish rather than just goldfish--the cockroach of the fish world! I would then hit the hardware store as I'm making chainmail again. Sounds simple and straight forward since my house is only about a mile away from both places. Savvy.

I make it to the fish shop on my bike with a little Tupperware container of fish water. It turns out to be nitrate heavy and thus about a week away from being stable. I leave the fish store and head for the Bell hardware. They only end up having a few of the parts I need so I figure I will ride out the Heaten Steel and see if they have what I need.

This is about another mile away so it takes a bit to get there. No luck, they are closed. Okay, I know I can go out to Pacific Air/Gas (incidentally I now know they are closed on the weekend) which is something like 3 to 5 miles away from my current location. Not a huge ride but a bit of a jaunt.

I start out and get about a mile and a half when I spot Grover electric and decide to see if they have what I need (wire of a smaller gauge). They don't and when I come back out to my bike, my tire is flat!

Now, this is the second time in a week. I had just replaced the tube the day before! WTF!!!? I call up Crackgerbal and ask her to come get me and take me to Hutch's bike shop which is about a mile from our house. She isn't happy--doing homework--but comes and gets me.

She drops me off at Hutch's and they tell me they can fix it in 5 minutes. I tell Crackgerbal to head home cause I'll just continue riding when they fix it. Five minutes later I'm back on the road heading out to Pacific Air/Gas again. About a half mile past where I got the first flat, I get another!! SON OF A BITCH!!!

I am near a home improvement place so I stop in and find the wire I need (at least a bit of what I need). I don't want to call Crackgerbal again so I begin pushing my bike the two or so miles back to Hutch's bike shop. When I get there--hot and grumpy and tired--they guy finds out that the tube was defective and fixes it at no extra charge. Small favors! Feh.

In the end I never made it out to Pacific Air/Gas. I got a small amount of *some* of the things I needed and that was all. A pain in the butt!

That is all

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Damn dude, that has got to suck! I reccommend purchasing some "slime" for that tube of yours. It works great!

Demented Chihuahua said...

Had slime in the tube. No help. Bitch of a day!

Papa Rick said...

slime doesn't do shit honest. it's a good scam that lots of ppl fall for. my dad had a bike shop and ppl were always bringing us cans of the stuff...which immediately went into the garbage...

check a few things:
1. inside of tire is clean of thorns (rub thumb over inside of it and you'll feel anything amiss)
2. air nozel isn't bent when tire is full. (rubber will dry and crack)
3. screws on inside of rim (from spokes) are covered. they get sharp and cause all sorts of nasty issues...

that and don't be a dumbass and run over glass, thorns, etc. they do have a solid rubber insert that you can have put into your tire. it's like a tube but takes no air. thus it won't go flat. it gives a bit stiffer of a ride but you never have flats...ever....

just a thought i love bikes...until they break which they tend to do quite often with me for some reason.....